


Belladonna

by Twilight_PhoenixFyre



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Someone got very Lost At Sea, other characters/tags to be added later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-11-09 06:09:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 11,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17996390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twilight_PhoenixFyre/pseuds/Twilight_PhoenixFyre
Summary: March Daily Prompt Challenge: Stages of a StoryGoing to try to turn this into a fairly coherent story. This plot bunny's been bouncing around in my head for a while, so... why not? No promises on how well this will go.Actual Summary:She wasn't from Berk. Not even close. The Vikings looked at her dark skin and wild hair and saw someone... different. Exotic. She was from an island, sure, but not theirs.They took her in anyway, because she was strong, and quick on her feet, and willing to fight. She was willing to try the whole 'part of a village' thing again. Even if the dragon problem was really getting out of hand.





	1. Burning

**Author's Note:**

> Some of these are being interpreted a bit... loosely. (Me and prompts don't get along great, usually.)
> 
> Also, this may (read: will hopefully) get expanded later.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 1: First impressions are everything. It’s time to write (or re-write) your ideal opening paragraph - for a long-completed fic, a WIP, or a future project. (100 words or as needed)
> 
> Written 3/2/19 | 82 words

Belladonna (or, just Bell, to most people) was very, very used to midnight wake-up calls. She’d grown up on an island plagued by dragons, escaped that island on the back of an extremely _rare_ species of dragon, and fallen from her partner’s back in a storm, only to wash up on another island plagued by dragons.

Waking up to smoke in her nose because the roof above her was burning, though? That was just a tad unusual.

“Hiccup! Where are the buckets?!”


	2. This is Berk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 2: You’ve heard the writing advice to consider your setting as a character? Please introduce us to that character today. (300 words)
> 
> Written 3/2/19 | 259 words

It wasn’t just the chief’s house that was on fire. Berk wasn’t the oldest of Viking settlements, but for a village that had been here seven generations, there were a _lot_ of new houses. Given that dragons and fire were practically synonymous, though, Bell wasn’t surprised. The night was blazing with the bright orange of a dozen houses set on fire, the inky darkness clinging where it could and hiding some of the smarter Vikings as they threw bolas and spears at the invading reptiles.

The early morning’s chill warded off by the fires, Bell raced through the battling villagers and dragons, heading for the well with the ease of many nights’ practice.

In the chaos of a dragon raid, Berk really wasn’t that different from home, she mused. Everything from the burning houses and shouting warriors to the swarming dragons. The biggest differences were all to be found when the world was calmer, when the only dragons on Berk were the ones locked up in the training ring.

Where she was used to sunny warmth, Berk was overcast and cold, the chill biting into her even past the furs she’d sewn together herself. Her home had to worry about massive waves and the volcano two islands over erupting, and Berk’s biggest (non-dragon) problems were storms and ice. It was so different...

But on nights like these, when the dragons lit up the town and she was less ‘outcast’ and more ‘fellow warrior,’ Berk felt like _home_.

And maybe, one day, it would feel like home all the time.


	3. Night Fury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 3: An often-cited truism says that there are two persistent archetypes for the beginning of a story: “a person goes on a journey” and “a stranger comes to town.” Does your opening fit into one of these or neither? (400 words)
> 
> Written 3/4/19 | 434 words

She’d only just gotten the fire at the chief’s house put out when she heard the familiar whistling.

“Night Fury!”

“Get down!”

Bell didn’t drop to the ground. Instead, she looked up, staring into the darkness, searching for—

It was only because she was looking, and knew _exactly_ what she was looking for, that she saw it. Dark scales that looked black, but which she knew weren’t.

Male.

 _Not_ Pine Tianma. Good. That meant her friend was elsewhere.

She nearly got run over on her way back to the center of the town, though not by the usual offenders (Snotlout, Ruffnut and Tuffnut... any adult Viking going after a dragon...).

No, this time it was Hiccup.

“Ow!”

“Sorry, sorry, are you hurt? No? ‘kay, gotta go!”

Bell stood in the middle of the intersection, rather flummoxed by what had just happened.

...What _had_ just happened?

She glanced around. Astrid and the rest of the teens Hiccup’s age were putting out fires. Stoick was bellowing orders. Gobber was swinging his mace-arm around with the usual wild abandon he seemed to have for everything.

No one was looking for her.

Or Hiccup, really.

She turned and took off after the boy who’d been the first to offer her a place to stay when Goethi had decided she was healed enough and kicked her out. Oh, Stoick had been happy enough to have her once she’d proved her worth both in cooking and in battle, but no one had been real willing to step up and take in the exotic stranger who was _always_ cold.

Hiccup stopped with his invention—the kid was brilliant, really, and so misunderstood that it hurt to watch him, because it reminded her of herself—and set it up, eyes scanning the night sky in the near pitch-black before dawn.

The familiar whistle started again, and as Hiccup moved the contraption, she suddenly realized what he meant to do with it.

And she couldn’t really justify stopping him. That was a _bola_ he had loaded, at least.

Night Furies were rare enough already. At least if he was going to shoot it down, it might live.

Hiccup made the shot, aim true as Astrid with an axe, and they were both silent for a moment. Then...

“Yes! Did _anybody_ see that?!”

A Monstrous Nightmare climbed up from the cliff he’d step up on, and Bell was suddenly rather glad she _always_ had weapons on her person.

“...Except for you,” the boy deadpanned before turning and running.

Bell couldn’t help snickering, even as she took off after him and the Nightmare chasing him.


	4. In the Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 4: At some point in every main character’s life, there comes an “inciting incident,” something that disrupts their world and drives the plot onward. Today, your character is still reeling from that moment. (300 words)
> 
> Written 3/2/19 | 206 words

She slipped away in the early dawn light, fully aware that Hiccup had a head start on her. Still, finding that Night Fury was paramount.

...Though, not for the reasons most people around here would assume.

Night Furies had been sacred to her people, a long time ago before dragons became _pests_ , stealing food and burning down houses. The records she’d found had told her that much, but despite reaching an accord with Tia, she still hadn’t figured out _why_.

Maybe befriending a second Night Fury would help? And besides, this one was male. She’d been able to make out that much in the darkness. Tia was pretty young still, so maybe, just maybe, Bell could end up with a mated pair on her hands.

So. Find the new Night Fury before Hiccup did.

Though, really, she wasn’t concerned about him killing the poor thing. No matter how much he tried to be a Viking, he had too much of a heart to actually kill a downed dragon. And unlike Hiccup, she’d gotten a good look at the angle the Night Fury had gone down at.

He’d waste time searching the entirety of Raven’s Point.

She would (hopefully) have a much better heading to work with.


	5. Grounded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 5: The Goal is all-important. Whether it’s Frodo dropping the Ring into Mount Doom or Harry defeating Voldemort, it’s the motivation that keeps the character(s) - and the plot - moving. Describe the moment when your character understands (or thinks they understand) their Goal for the first time. (400 words)
> 
> Written 3/5/19 | 425 words

Hiccup beat her to it.

How in the _hell_ —

No, forget it. Just... watch. Because there was Hiccup, and there was the downed dragon, tied up in the ropes from the bola Hiccup had launched with that invention of his, and for the moment, they were both alive.

She moved slowly, carefully, trying not to draw attention. If they didn’t know she was here, they’d... well, she wasn’t sure. But if they _did_ know she was here, Hiccup at least would act different.

She’d seen it in the year since she’d washed up on the beach. At first, when she’d been as much of an outcast as he was, an exotic stranger with too-dark skin and loose, wild hair cut boyishly short, he’d been open around her. Now, when Berk was starting to acclimate to her eccentricities, he gave her the same not-quite cold shoulder everyone else got.

So, she kept her distance and watched, hoping she’d gotten close enough to save Hiccup if the Night Fury decided he was done humoring the silly two-legged.

Hiccup drew the dagger he carried almost religiously, and Bell grimaced as he raised it, tensing herself to save one of them.

The Night Fury was down. Resigned to his fate, from the way he wasn’t even fighting.

And then, Hiccup’s determination faltered.

The stillness that followed was heavy. She’d been right. Hiccup wouldn’t kill the dragon. But what...

The minute he dropped to a knee and started cutting the Night Fury loose, Bell remembered the night she’d freed Tia from her father’s trap. Would this Night Fury react the same way her friend had? Or would he move differently?

She forcibly held herself still when the dragon burst free of the loosened ropes and pinned Hiccup down, teeth bared, and... Then it roared, loud and right in Hiccup’s face, before turning and bounding off.

She saw the missing tail fin a split second before the dragon vanished in the trees, clearly trying to fly away but not managing it.

A thump drew her eyes to Hiccup, who had fainted from the shock of what had just happened, and a plan started forming in her mind.

Hiccup had made the device that had brought the Night Fury down. And the Night Fury had spared his life, just as Pine Tianma had spared _hers_ three years ago when she’d first freed her friend.

She’d see what she could do about getting Hiccup to help that Night Fury back into the air. And maybe, just maybe, Hiccup’s story would stop echoing hers.


	6. Wagon Wreck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 6: Most stories have an external antagonist in some shape or form. This is the character, natural force, or obstacle that prevents the protagonist from reaching their goal prematurely. Today, we meet that antagonist for the first time. (200 words)
> 
> Written 3/5/19 | 163 words

It took her a second to translate the garbled mess of words that Hiccup and Stoick had just exchanged.

Hiccup’s “I can’t kill dragons” wasn’t a surprise.

Stoick’s “I’m putting you in dragon training” _was_.

She stood back, blinked twice at the father-son pair currently having a stare-down, and wondered how badly this was going to muck up her plans. The Night Fury Hiccup shot down couldn’t fly, so she’d hoped to get the whole thing started sooner rather than later, but...

“I’ve decided to enroll you in dragon training. You start tomorrow,” Stoick repeated.

Hiccup groaned, and she fought down the urge to do anything more than cross her arms. “I should have gone first,” the boy muttered. “Dad, I can’t kill dragons.”

“But you _will_ kill dragons.”

Yeah, nope.

Bell turned and walked right out the back door, not wanting to listen to that particular wagon wreck of a conversation any longer.

Speaking of wrecks, time to start readjusting her plans.


	7. Pine Tianma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 7: Assembling the team - whether this is a story about enemies or strangers to friends or lovers or something else entirely, we need a cast. Enter at least one new character! (300 words)
> 
> Written 3/9/19 | 352 words

“’Ye shoul’ help wi’ dragon training,’ he says. ‘Hiccup might actually _learn_ somthin’ if ye’re there tae help,’ he says. Yeah, right. And I’m a troll.” A sharp crack rang out through the forest as she landed on a branch that couldn’t support her weight, and only years of training herself had her reacting in time, arm shooting out and throwing an odd metal hook through the air, the rope attached to it sending her swinging safely to the next branch that _was_ sturdy enough to support her weight.

Bell looked around at the unfamiliar trees, and did the tricky little whip-twist that got the rather dangerous-looking hook to let go of the branch it had caught.

She jerked the grappling hook back to her and wound the rope, letting it hang from her side once more, before she noticed the silence.

It was _too_ silent.

The tree next to hers shifted suddenly, seeming to lean over a bit, and the movement drew her eyes to it, and then up.

Golden eyes, sharp as a hawk’s, and many times larger. Scales that looked black, but which would reveal themselves as _green_ if she held a shed one to the sun.

Bell grinned and started clambering up the tree as quickly as she could. “There you are, Tia! I was wondering if you were planning to come back any time soon!”

The Night Fury above her snorted, tail lashing back and forth. Then she made a sound Bell could only describe as a bark, and which she’d learned meant ‘look at me, you silly human!’

Or, well, something to that tune. Bell got a bit creative when translating, because it was fun, and Tia had the same sense of humor she did, so... Oh.

Tia’s saddle was gone. But the leather bands on her ear flaps weren’t, so...

“Is it repairable, or do I need to start from scratch?” she asked.

Tia looked back at the space between her wings on her back, and then turned back and crooned sadly.

“From scratch then. Great.” At least Hiccup wouldn’t be in the forge tonight...


	8. A Bit of a Hiccup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 8: Every good main character has at least one serious flaw or blind spot. If they don’t know it already, it’s up to someone else to point it out. Describe that moment of revelation. (200 words)
> 
> Written 3/9/19 | 239 Words

Or, rather, Hiccup wasn’t _supposed_ to be in the forge tonight.

And... that was _her_ notebook he had open and was leafing through rather frantically.

He stopped suddenly, reading over... Ugh, she couldn’t see from this angle. But the green-colored corner told her it was one of her pages of Night Fury observations, and not something more personal.

Wait a minute.

She always used her birth language. So was Hiccup actually _reading_ it, or...?

“...That’s why he can’t get out of that cove.”

The sudden quiet sentence startled her, and she bumped into... well, _something_ , she wasn’t sure in the shadows, but it clanged, and Hiccup spun around with wide eyes, searching the shadows for her.

And _this_ was exactly why she’d chosen _dark_ furs and darkly-dyed cloth when she’d made her clothing. Night Furies were invisible at night because they were dark and moved fast. Her skin was too dark for Hiccup to see her.

He waited a moment before turning back to her journal, seemingly stuck on the same sentence.

She’d have to find a new way to make her personal entries more difficult to read, she mused. Gobber had learned enough of her birth tongue for them to have a conversation. And Hiccup... he was a bright kid.

She shouldn’t have expected a difference in runes to slow Hiccup down, she mused as she carefully slipped back outside.

She’d have to work on Tia’s saddle later.


	9. Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 9: Related to the protagonist’s flaw is the idea that there is a lesson to be learned - a controlling idea, a 'moral' if you will. Early in the story, we should see some anticipation of the theme. (300 words)
> 
> Written 3/9/19 | 273 Words

Landing on the hard wood floor under her jolted her rather rudely awake, but by that point, she’d stopped caring. She was drenched in sweat from head to toe, her father’s enraged expression and the dozens of boats leaving the island the only thing she could see in her mind’s eye.

“...Bell?”

She looked over her shoulder at Hiccup. He looked uncomfortable, but clearly _very_ worried.

She untangled her legs from her blankets and threw them back on the uncomfortable bed she’d (unfortunately) gotten used to.

“...Are you okay?”

She took a deep breath, sat down heavily on top of her blankets, and shook her head.

No, she _wasn’t_ okay. Not when her greatest nightmare was returning, and not just in her dreams.

...She had to _do_ something, she realized suddenly.

She knew where this was going. She knew what would happen. And the only way to stop it...

She slipped into her mother tongue, having heard Hiccup muttering about the Night Fury he’d shot down in it.

_“You get the tail fin figured out yet?”_

Hiccup ran a hand through his hair. _“Working on it. Need a saddle to work it without falling off.”_

_“Can’t get it to mirror the other fin?”_

_“Not without_ way _more—“_ Hiccup cut off suddenly and stared at her, and she offered up a sheepish grin.

“So, that loud noise a couple nights ago was me.”

“You—but—you— _Why?!_ ”

 _‘To save you from the fate I suffered,’_ she thought.

“I need to make Tia a new saddle. Her old one’s too damaged for her to even wear anymore.”

The look on Hiccup’s face was priceless.


	10. Blindsided

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 10: The order for today is a change of pace - if you’re writing a serious story, make this scene a lighthearted one; if you normally write fluff, maybe it’s time for a sober heart-to-heart? (200 words)
> 
> Written 3/9/19 | 278 Words
> 
> (Change of pace? Change of POV!)

It never really occurred to him how much _faster_ things got done when there were multiple people working on them. Oh, he _knew_ putting two or three people on the same task could make it easier and/or faster, but he’d never actually _experienced_ it.

Gobber never helped him with his inventions.

His dad never helped him cook. (Which, really, was probably best; his father was a lot of things, but a good cook was not one of them.)

And, until recently, Bell had never seemed to take notice of him as anything more than a neighbor. Yes, she was living in their house, but that didn’t make her any less distant.

Though, that _probably_ wasn’t her fault.

Still.

He crossed his arms and _stared_ at the pair of saddles in front of him.

“Hm. Maybe not quite as nice as the old one, but for a single night’s work, the fact that we got _two_ done is impressive.”

And she’d said that so matter-of-factly that Hiccup switched from staring at the saddles, to staring at _Bell_.

Which, while not _quite_ as regular an occurrence as staring at Astrid was... Well. Bell wasn’t bad-looking. Weird, yes, but she wasn’t from anywhere _near_ Berk, so it was something he could ignore.

...And he needed to stop staring at her. She was at least five years older than him, and an outsider...

And she knew about Toothless. She had a Night Fury friend of her own (though Hiccup was still a bit unsure about where _exactly_ he and Toothless stood on the friendship scale).

“I need to sleep,” he decided. Before he did something stupid in front of Bell.

...Well. Stupid- _er_.


	11. Bracers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 11: Every quest needs a Special Item(tm), construed very flexibly here - a weapon, an inheritance, a vehicle, an article of clothing, etc. Here, a character reflects on the importance of that item to them. (100 words)
> 
> Written 3/19/19 & 3/22/19 | 309 Words
> 
> (And then the depression struck. Can we tell from the date(s)?)

Hiccup was stuck in dragon training—which she’d _finally_ managed to get herself out of having to ‘assist’ with, thank the gods for that—and she still had no clue where Toothless was.

Toothless.

 _Tooth-less_.

...Why did Vikings insist on the _dumbest_ names...?

She shook her head and forced the thought aside, clambering up to the rather piecemeal nest Tia had made for herself in the top of... well. Pine trees bent pretty well, much like palms did, so she really shouldn’t have been too surprised when her friend decided to finagle a bunch of them into becoming a nest.

It didn’t make it any easier to get _into_ that nest, though, she mused as she pulled herself up.

And, Tia wasn’t here.

That just figured.

She sighed and settled down in the nest to wait, looking around as she did so.

It wasn’t _quite_ at the very top of the trees, and treetops bent over it to help hide it from above. It also served as shelter from the rain and hail, she supposed.

Something black drew her eye, and she reached over to investigate. Except, it wasn’t actually black.

Darkly-dyed cloth and leather ties hung under midnight-dark green scales, and Bell stared at it for a moment before she pulled the Night Fury-scale bracer on over the fur she currently had wrapped around her forearms. A little digging, and she found the second one, pulling it on as well.

Her bracers had survived. Tia had managed to rescue those, at least.

She clenched her fists, and forced back the memory of how much trouble these had caused for her, determinedly remembering _making_ them, using them, and what had started the whole project in the first place.

She was a Night Rider.

And, if Hiccup ever got out of dragon training, maybe one day he’d be one too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again beating my head off a wall due to lack of details.
> 
> For information's sake, Bell uncovered something in a cave on her home island and that's a lot of what spawned this chapter here. However, due to prompts and attempts to keep to suggested word counts (which I'm not the greatest at, clearly), this is the first we're seeing of it.
> 
> Long story very short: Night Fury riders used to be (like, a century+ ago) fairly common around Bell's home island.


	12. Forge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 12: Hubris is a very common fatal flaw in tragedies, but it’s not limited to them. Anytime someone assumes their own infallibility, they risk falling prey to pride. In this scene, however, your character is still full of self-confidence. Maybe someone has a warning for them, though? (500 words)
> 
> Written 3/22/19 | 563 Words

Hiccup was still struggling to get Toothless off the ground, and Bell was running out of ideas. Sure, Toothless and Tia were getting on alright, and she’d had plenty of time to modify and upgrade Tia’s saddle alongside Hiccup. Okay, so Hiccup’s upgrading and modifications were purely in the interests of staying on Toothless’ back and keeping the Night Fury in the air, rather than some of the more aesthetic work she was doing, but it was decidedly comforting to have someone working alongside her on nights like these.

“...So...”

Oh boy. She knew that particular tone of voice. That was Hiccup’s ‘I have a million questions’ voice.

“So?” she prompted.

“When did you have time to make those bracers?”

She paused, blinked, and glanced at her arms. She’d shifted the fur wraps so they covered the Night Fury-scale bracers during the day, but once she was out of Berk, the fur wraps came off. And she’d had them back for a couple days now.

“I made them a couple years ago. Or, well... I _finished_ them a couple years ago,” she corrected herself. “It took a while to get all the scales I needed. Night Furies shed scales as much as any other dragon, but Tia and I were almost constantly on the move, and I was usually too tired or too panicked to think about trying to collect them up as we were leaving a place.”

Hiccup made an odd sound. “Why do they look _green_?”

She blinked and looked up at Hiccup, then realized that no, he hadn’t actually noticed yet. She supposed it helped that the fabric onto which she’d sewn the scales was a dark gray, but not actually black. “Their skin is black. Their scales, though...” She dug around in a pocket and pulled out a handful of scales. Even in the firelight Hiccup was working from at the moment, she could see the differences in color, and she put all but one each of Tia’s and Toothless’ scales away before stepping over to the fire and holding the scales between Hiccup and the fire.

Then she stood there and waited, knowing from the wide-eyed blinking Hiccup was doing that he’d already spotted the color difference.

“...Tia’s green. Toothless is _blue_ ,” he said finally.

She nodded, and slipped Tia’s scale back into her pocket, before holding Toothless’ out. “Here. Get a bunch saved up, and I’ll teach you how to get them sewn together like this,” she said, gesturing to a bracer.

“I’m not exactly a fighter. I think we’ve proven that already.”

She crossed her arms and gave him a considering look.

“How much of my Night Fury notes have you read?” she asked. Hiccup turned a pretty impressive shade of red, since he knew that was also her personal journal, and he was a good kid. Snooping wasn’t something he would do under normal circumstances.

“Not a lot. I was focusing on the notes regarding how the tail fin gets used in flight,” he said. “And you’ve _told_ me basically everything else.”

She nodded an acceptance of this fact, and sat down on the bench she’d been working from. “Then, let me tell you about the old legend that first started me on this whole thing...” Maybe if he understood, they could avoid the repeat of history she was pretty sure was headed this way.


	13. Surrender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 13: And things were going so well (unless they weren’t)… in this scene, your character meets their first major setback. It’s shocking, demoralizing, and painful (possibly literally). What happened? (300 words)
> 
> Written 3/22/19 | 196

There was definitely a Death in the area. And it ached, so much, to see the sharp, hawk-gold eyes she was so used to clouding over as Tia fought off the monster’s call.

Toothless had already tried to take to the air, but with Hiccup caught up in the forge on weapons maintenance duty, he wasn’t getting anywhere.

It had taken all of Tia’s will to ground herself when the call had started and not fly back to the nest as she clearly wanted to.

Bell wondered to herself if this meant Stoick had gotten too close to the nest. For the beast to be calling in every dragon in the archipelago, it must be either very hungry—quite possible, if it was the same size as the one near her home islands—or very uninterested in visitors.

Also quite possible.

And then, with a gust of wind strong enough to knock her on her arse since she hadn’t been expecting it, Tia leapt into the air and winged away, almost due north.

Not east. Not toward the nest. Toward the other Viking tribes.

Bell watched her friend go with a sinking feeling in her chest.


	14. Reconcile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 14: Shaken by failure, your character licks their wounds and tries to come to terms with disaster, either alone or with their friends. Where do they find the resolve to continue on? (200 words)
> 
> Written 3/22/19 | 279 Words

Tia was gone.

It was like a mantra, repeating over and over again in her head as she wandered down into the Cove. The Death’s call had ended, and Toothless was scanning the skies. It was about noon, around the same time Tia had started bringing him lunch on the days Hiccup couldn’t get out of the village until late afternoon.

Tia was gone.

If Toothless wanted to eat, she’d have to go get something, herself. Or Hiccup would have to get out here. It was already a little while past when Tia should have gone fishing, anyway.

Toothless’ ear fins perked up when she walked into the Cove, and he bounded over to her, greeting her with a happy warble and a sniff.

“I don’t have anything,” she said softly.

“Geeze, he’s acting like he hasn’t seen anyone all day.”

And she was promptly ignored in favor of Hiccup.

When Toothless started sniffing the Berkian boy as well, Hiccup frowned and looked over at her. “...Where’s Tia?”

She crossed her arms. “Gone. The Death’s too close, and too hungry. The only reason Toothless isn’t gone too is because he can’t fly on his own,” she admitted.

“...Death?”

“Massive, evil dragon. The entire reason for the raids.”

Silence reigned in the clearing for a while, though she could hear movement behind her that indicated Hiccup and Toothless were doing _something_.

A black head in her peripheral vision, and a tap on her shoulder.

She glanced at Hiccup mounted on Toothless’ back, and blinked at his hand for a moment.

“You coming?” he asked. “Maybe, between the two of us, we can get Toothless in the air a little faster.”


	15. Everything We Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 15: It’s the Ides of March and we’re past the point of no return. It’s now harder to go back than it is to soldier forward (or maybe even impossible). What is your character thinking as they reach that turning point? (500 words)
> 
> Written 3/22/19 | 537 Words

She was absolutely, positively _terrified_.

No Tia. Just herself, Hiccup, and Toothless, all in a panicked freefall over what she knew were some of the most dangerous sea stacks around Berk. Even if she and Hiccup could both get back into the saddle—

And then Hiccup did it, pulling himself back into place and reattaching the straps of his riding vest. Green eyes rose to her as she fell further and further away, and she wished she at least had her glider, but she didn’t.

Two pairs of green eyes narrowed, the little scrap of paper that had technically started this freefall abandoned, and Hiccup and Toothless shot through the sky toward her, under her.

The next few moments of her life, she would never remember clearly. Between the utter terror that she was going to die, the desperate need to stay in sync with Hiccup and Toothless as they threw themselves through the sea stack, and that giddy feeling of ‘we’re _actually_ doing this’... Well.

Nothing really registered in her mind until much later, when a trio of Terrors decided to crash their dinner, and Hiccup finally said the words she knew he’d been thinking for a while, but had never had the courage to admit out loud.

“Everything we know about you guys... is wrong.”

She smiled a bit to herself as she laid out on her back nearby. “Well. Maybe not _everything_.”

“Ah. Speaking Norse again, are we?”

“Why, was I speaking my mothertongue?”

“You weren’t speaking, period.”

“Well _excuse me_ if near-death experiences do that to me.”

Silence fell over the entire group for a long few minutes.

“...You’ve... had a lot of those, haven’t you...?”

Bell stared up at the fire-colored sky for a long few moments before she turned her head enough to look at Hiccup. He didn’t look like he’d be surprised if she said she had, but... Oh, hell. They’d gotten this far, and for them to have survived that flight through the sea stacks...

“I cut Pine Tianma and a dozen other dragons loose from my father’s traps. Not all at once, but... Over about a year, I think I saved fourteen or fifteen?” She went silent for a long few moments, taking a deep breath to try to steady herself, even though it really wasn’t working. “It... didn’t help anything, back home. Father still took the warriors of the tribe to find the nest that was attacking us, and... I got lucky. The Death in charge there sent all the dragons away before it destroyed the attacking party, all but a couple ships... which it then followed back to our village.”

She could see it in the way Hiccup’s freckles suddenly stood out starkly against the _white_ of his face. “Your village was... is...”

“Gone.” Her eyes rose to the sunset sky again, and she sighed. “Tia got me out, and we just... wandered. For a long time. Almost three years, actually. Until a freak thunderstorm knocked us out of the air, and I washed up on the shore near Berk.”

The silence was awkward, but she had no more words to fill it with.

Hiccup found a few, though.

“I won’t let that happen to Berk.”


	16. Training Trade-Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 16: In this next scene, someone’s ready for personal growth as they undertake a thematically-appropriate new experience. Will they take a risk on love, a task, or a challenge of another sort? (300 words)
> 
> Written 3/22/19 | 427 Words

“I’m quitting dragon training.”

The sudden silence that fell over the ring was... startling, to say the least.

Bell was suddenly rather happy she’d decided to come. The _looks_ on everyone’s faces when Hiccup said that...

“Why?!” And, ooh, surprise, surprise. Snotlout was the first one to somewhat get his bearings.

Hiccup looked up at her, and she blinked twice, then shrugged when everyone else turned as well. “I’d tell you guys, but I’d have to kill you. I trust Hiccup to keep his mouth shut, too,” she started. “And anyway, if he wants to give me more time to train him, fine by me. He’s not learning anything _here_ that I’m not also going over.”

Gobber let out a rather loud groan. “Yeh’re not exactly a Viking.”

“Yeah, well, Hiccup might be a Viking by blood, but I hate to say it, he takes after my people more than anyone else on this island. So, you can all deal with it,” she said bluntly.

Well, really, he took after _her_ , but... details.

“See ya!” And then Hiccup was running right back out of the training ring, and Bell took off after him, something like a small smile on her face. Though...

“You realize, with you no longer mitigating the damage...” she started.

Hiccup gritted his teeth. “Look, if... _when_ Dad comes back, the rate I was going, I was going to end up ‘winning,’ and you know... You know how that ends. You _told_ me how that ends.”

She nodded. “Fair enough. So, new question. Do I actually get to teach you my fighting style? Or at least the basics, so you can figure out what works best for you?”

Green eyes blinked at her, and then Hiccup snorted. “Sure. I guess we’ll have to show Dad _something_ when he asks why I’m ditching Gobber to hang out in the woods with you all day.”

He stopped there rather suddenly, blinked again, and then stared at her, something like a vaguely mortified look coming over him.

It took her a minute to realize where his mind had headed, and she snickered and whacked the boy upside the head. “Focus your attention on Astrid, brat. You’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to a little brother. I’d hate to lose that.” Her grin slowly shifted, a somewhat menacing tilt to it now, she was sure. “Besides, you’re not going to want anything to do with me when I’m done with you.”

Hiccup didn’t _quite_ look like he was dreading it, but at least the mortification was gone.


	17. Silver Aionis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 17: Even characters who are notionally allies or friends don’t always see eye to eye on how best to achieve their goal(s). When they come to cross-purposes, how will they resolve their disagreement? (400 words)
> 
> Written 3/22/19, 3/23/19, 3/24/19 | 438 Words
> 
> Introducing... the rest of the flock! Or, well... part of it.

It took three days for Hiccup to finally break, but it wasn’t for any reason close to what she was expecting.

“We need to get Tia back.”

She crossed her arms and scowled. “No. Either she comes back of her own will, or she doesn’t. We are not risking losing Toothless back to the Death.”

“Carrying you with us constantly isn’t helping either!” Hiccup pointed out. “That saddle’s not _made_ for two, and it’s really hard to operate the tailfin if I don’t have the full range of motion in my leg. I _barely_ managed with the sea-stacks.”

She winced at the rather ugly reminder.

Alright. So Hiccup had a point.

Two of them on the back of one dragon wasn’t the greatest idea.

But... retrieving Tia from the Death’s nest wasn’t a good idea, either. So that left them at rather a standstill.

She sat down on a boulder and eyed Toothless, considering what she’d learned from years on Tia’s back.

Pine Tianma wasn’t the only one of her flock to make it to Berk. Hell, she was pretty sure a large part of what Tia was _doing_ when she disappeared for weeks on end was tracking down the rest of the flock.

But... if Tia had given in to the Death’s calls, then what were the chances that any of the others were still flying free?

...She needed to look, at least. Silver Aionis should be able to keep up with Toothless in the air, unless Hiccup decided more stunts were necessary.

“We’ll have to manage for at least two more days, five at the max,” she decided. “And I’m going to have to give Gobber some kind of excuse. Tia wasn’t the only dragon who came this far north with me. We had a whole flock, actually, all different species of dragons. If we’re lucky, Sil hasn’t given in to the Death’s calls. She’s the next fastest behind Tia.”

“And Sil is a...”

“Deadly Nadder. Looks almost white at a glance, actually. Her full name’s Silver Aionis.”

“You and your colors...” Hiccup deadpanned. She grinned.

Yeah, she did have a tendency to do that, didn’t she?

“And if Silver Aionis isn’t where you think she’ll be?”

She shrugged. “We’ve got three other options. Pine Coriolys, whom I’d really rather _not_ try to wrangle for riding, since he’s a Whispering Death. Kiwi Kopite, who is way too slow to try to keep up with Toothless. Or the Nadder in the training ring.”

Hiccup’s flinch told her that he agreed with her opinion of that last one; it really wasn’t an option.

“So, field trip?”

“Field trip.”


	18. Race

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 18: Let the good times roll! There’s something to celebrate. It might be a little distracting from business as usual, and wiser heads might be concerned about such things, but not this character. (300 words)
> 
> Written 3/24/19 | 184 Words
> 
> Funny story; didn't actually get the word count for this chapter until I went to post it.

Being in the air on the back of her own dragon again was a good feeling. It wasn’t Silver Aionis, but Rose Coriolys was almost as good. Faster, too, though decidedly more prickly.

Though, to be fair, ‘prickly’ was a standard state of being for Sand Wraiths.

Which was why she decided her first concern needed to be getting another saddle made. Tia had taken off with hers, and while she and Rose could use the same saddle, being of similar sizes and shapes... well, Tia was gone, and her saddle with her.

“Race you back to the cove!” Hiccup shouted suddenly, Toothless shooting past her and Rose a second later.

She grinned and bent down over her Sand Wraith’s back. “Are we gonna let them leave us in the dust, Rose?”

There was a split second where she wasn’t sure if Rose was going to bother with the boys or not.

Then the pale Sand Wraith dropped into a dive, sacrificing altitude for the speed they needed to catch up to Hiccup and Toothless, and Bell grinned at the rush of the wind.


	19. Stoick's Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 19: Victory/success is tantalizingly close, but something - a betrayal, a misunderstanding, an unforeseen problem - gets in the way. (200 words)
> 
> Written 3/24/19 | 376 Words

“Dad, no, I’m not—“

“How many times have I heard you _begging_ to fight dragons, and now you’re skiving off on dragon training?!”

Bell froze, still half-in and half-out of the door, the saddle she’d only just finished for Rose under her arm and very much _not_ what she wanted Stoick to see if he turned around.

Hiccup’s panicked eyes darted over his father’s shoulder—only possible due to the fact that he was on the stairs—and met hers, and she knew he spotted the saddle when what little color was left in his face drained away.

Unfortunately, that drew Stoick’s eyes as well, and she shifted, leaning against the doorframe and letting the saddle rest against the outside of the house.

“Is now a bad time?” she asked as casually as possible, hoping none of the saddle’s straps were in sight.

Stoick was back. This was... well. Not _bad_ , as it meant Hiccup still had his father and there probably wasn’t a massive Death headed for Berk just yet, but it wasn’t good either. Especially given the argument she’d just walked in on.

The chief must not have found anything odd about her stance or anything, because he sighed and looked away again. “Did Gobber talk to you about this?” he asked, gesturing to Hiccup.

She crossed her arms with a frown, then stepped inside, making a gesture she hoped Hiccup would interpret correctly as ‘get the saddle out of sight.’ “You know how I fight the dragons, Stoick.”

“Aye. Trickery and misdirection. Not exactly the Viking way, but your tricks keep more sheep on the ground than a dozen axes, most nights,” Stoick replied. “But Hiccup is—“

“He was doing the same thing in the ring that I did back home, Stoick,” she cut in, startling the massive Viking. Stoick looked at her with confusion evident in his eyes, and she shrugged. “Put him in the ring in the morning. You’ll see. You’ve seen what I do in the raids. The only thing the ring’s taught him is to do the same. Not _fight_. Deflect.”

If she could get Stoick on board with _that_ much, at least, keeping Toothless—and now Rose—hidden would be... at least a _little_ easier. Maybe.


	20. Deja Vu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 20: All feels lost. The company is broken, demoralized, and scattered. There will be a new day, but it’s not here yet. Describe a solitary moment of despair. (400 words)
> 
> Written 3/24/19 & 3/25/19 | 578 Words
> 
> ...Not quite solitary, but definitely a moment of despair.

Everything went wrong so quickly.

One minute, Hiccup had been in the ring, doing _exactly_ as she’d told him to do. Train the dragon, but don’t let it _look_ like training the dragon. Get it back into its cage.

Then... Well.

Group training session.

She was pretty sure it was actually Snotlout’s fault. Oh, Astrid had been absolutely incensed that Hiccup was doing so well against the dragon, but she’d already been told outright that it was just one session to prove a point to Stoick.

 _Snotlout_ had been trying to flirt, and gotten angry when Astrid’s eyes had refused to stray from Hiccup’s tricks. He’d thrown his mace, agitated the Nadder they’d let loose in training, and Astrid had leapt in.

Hiccup had gotten between her and the dragon and talked it down.

In front of most of the village.

Which had lead to a lot of yelling, and a panicking Nadder, and a screaming Hiccup... and Toothless.

Bell sat on the wooden walkway and let her legs swing back and forth as she considered their current situation. The only _marginally_ good thing about the whole mess was the fact that Rose hadn’t gotten into the mix.

Footsteps behind her. All of the adult Vikings had left save for any mothers with young children. Stoick meant to make one last stand... and, given that they hadn’t been able to stop it, it probably _would_ be the last stand. So, one of the teens.

Hiccup sat down next to her with a heavy sigh, still shaky on his feet, still with puffy eyes from the tears he hadn’t been able to keep contained. “...Why couldn’t I have just killed that dragon when I had the chance?”

He didn’t actually mean that. She didn’t need to see his face to know that he didn’t actually mean that.

“I suppose... I got lucky. Father took one of my flock, yeah, but she was a changewing, Crystal Kopite. Gorgeous thing, not even fully grown. She was just a baby when I rescued her. But... she’s the one he caught me with, and he used her to find the nest.”

“Like Dad’s using Toothless.” She had a sudden weight against her side, and she reached out an arm to wrap it around the teen’s shoulders. “How long, do you think, before...”

She’d fled, the last time she’d seen the massive Death on the horizon. Grabbed Pine Tianma and as many personal effects as she could, and taken off, the Night Fury’s speed saving her life as her village burned behind her.

This time...

Sure, she had Rose still. She’d checked, while Stoick was loading up Toothless, after being told bluntly that he’d deal with her when he got back. The Sand Wraith was still snoozing away in the cove, though decidedly lonely now that Toothless was gone. Prickly, she may be, but dragons were usually social creatures, and Sand Wraiths weren’t that different.

But when all was said and done...

“I’ve run away once. And... we know how that ended. I could run away again, but where would I go? I’ll have lost a second home, a second family, and my _sister_. I... I can’t leave without Tia.” She glanced down at Hiccup. “I don’t really want to leave without my little brother, either.”

Green eyes rose, then dropped to the water again. “So... I guess... we’re just gonna stay and wait, huh?”

...That sounded like as good an idea as any.


	21. Scared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 21: How did your story begin again? Let’s revisit that on a thematic level. The challenge today is to write a second start of sorts, one that acknowledges how far they’ve come, breathing new life into a weary, discouraged cast. (200 words)
> 
> Written 3/26/19 | 492 Words

“So, that’s it?”

The sudden voice surprised her, and Hiccup too, if his jerking upright meant anything.

Astrid stood a couple yards away, arms crossed, and expression unreadable. “You two are just going to give up. After everything you’ve done.”

Bell rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. She was tired. Tired of having to explain her past, tired of watching it play out again...

Hiccup groaned. “You don’t even know the half of it.”

Astrid was quiet for a moment, before her expression hardened and she stepped up to the edge, adding to the line along the walkway. “I know you shot down that Night Fury, like you tried to tell everyone you did _weeks_ ago. I know you trained him. And that saddle on his back says you’ve flown with him. And... If you and Bell are really so alike... that means _she_ ’s flown on a dragon, too.” Blue eyes watched Hiccup like a hawk. “Any one of us would have killed that Night Fury. So? Why didn’t you?”

Bell blinked. Twice. Because Astrid was confusing the shit out of her right now.

Hiccup was oddly quiet, though, in the moments after that question.

And then his hand tightened, not quite closing fully. Did he have something in his palm?

“I looked in his eyes, and... I wouldn’t kill him because he looked as scared as I was.” Green eyes darted to her again, and she knew what he was going to say, because it was the same thing that had saved Pine Tianma from her father’s nets.

“I looked at him/her, and I saw myself,” they chorused.

It was Astrid’s turn to blink in surprise, though it faded pretty quickly, something like resignation in her stance. “I bet at least one of them’s pretty scared now.”

“Both, probably. If they don’t contribute enough to the nest, the Death eats them,” Bell muttered.

“So? What are you gonna do about it?”

What _could_ they do about it?

But, that spark was back in Hiccup’s eyes. “Eh, probably something stupid.”

Astrid looked amused. “Good, but, you’ve already done that.”

Already done... Wait a minute!

Astrid, clearly willing to help.

Hiccup, brilliant in the air as long as he was on Toothless’ back.

And she had two dragons still in the area that were used to working with her; Rose Coriolys and Aqua Tianma. And Rose was almost as fast as a Night Fury.

“Then something crazy,” Hiccup breathed, already climbing to his feet, eyes locked on something in the distance—the training ring.

Green met dark amber, and the silent understanding passed between them before Hiccup took off running.

“Get Snotlout and the others, meet Hiccup at the ring!” she shouted as she raced past Astrid, going the opposite direction from her adoptive brother. “I’ll catch up!”

It was crazy, and there was a good chance they were all going to die...

But at least they’d go down fighting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another round of banging my head off a wall.
> 
> If/When I ever get around to writing the full version of this, there will be a chapter in Astrid's POV, involving the mess in the ring, that will explain why she did this even though, noteably, the whole 'romantic flight' scene NEVER HAPPENED.
> 
> Basically: Bell told Astrid to observe, and she observed. A lot. And swallowed down her pride to get some answers.


	22. Saddle Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 22: Training montage - it’s not just for 80s movies anymore. Your character needs a new skill/tool/device if they want to succeed the next time where they’ve failed in the past. Someone takes it upon themselves to help them get there. (400 words)
> 
> Written 3/26/19 | 534 Words

A list of stats was currently going through his head, as well as the knowledge that his choices were extremely limited.

Nadder, Gronkle, Zippleback, Nightmare. The Terror was out because _size_.

The Nadder was the fastest, but the others could all be of use in a fight like this... He didn’t have the time to _really_ train them, though! He and Bell had only just started working on hand signals for Toothless, and she’d had _years_ to train her flock, and...

“So, what’s the plan?”

He jumped and spun around. Astrid again.

...This time with Snotlout, Fishlegs, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut with her. “Uh...”

“You were wise to seek help from the deadliest—“

A low whistle cut through the air, and Snotlout shouted ‘Night Fury.’

A burning ball of sand hit the ground a few feet away from Tuffnut, spraying the two of them liberally with sand, but thankfully not setting them on fire.

“Not a Night Fury, but yes, steep dive straight down and a Sand Wraith’s wings’ll whistle like that too,” Bell called from where Rose was now hovering over the ring. “Hiccup, you think you can get this lot to Helheim’s Gate alone? Aqua’s close enough for me to get her in on this, but only if I go _now_.”

Oh boy...

But... They’d all come.

And it solved the problem of how to get all four dragons to the battle. The twins made them a group of six total, but if they doubled up on the Zippleback and he rode with the Nadder or Nightmare...

“We’ll be there!” he shouted back.

Bell nodded, and then Rose twisted into a dive, giving up altitude for speed as she raced away to get her Scauldron.

“I was gonna say, the pitch was all wrong to be a Night Fury,” Fishlegs piped up. “Er... What are we doing?”

Hiccup smiled a bit. They were here. They knew what he’d _really_ been doing, now. They’d just seen Bell on the back of her Sand Wraith, and they were still _here_.

He opened the doors to the Nightmare’s enclosure and stepped in slowly, carefully, showing it he wasn’t a threat before leading it out.

“Uh-uh.” A clatter told him someone had tried to pick up a weapon. Probably Snotlout, given Astrid’s tone of voice. Which... actually. Perfect.

He backed straight to where that clatter had been and reached back for his cousin’s arm, making a couple grabs at air before he found Snotlout’s arm guard.

“Easy,” he murmured, guiding his cousin’s hand to the Nightmare’s snout. Whether the reassurance was for dragon or human, he honestly wasn’t sure.

Nor did he care.

He saw it, the moment Snotlout and the Nightmare accepted each other, and couldn’t help but grin as he stepped away, headed for the box to the side. He was pretty sure...

“Wait, where are you going?!”

He snorted and held up a coil of rope. “You’re gonna need something to help you hold on.”

And he needed to get the other three dragons out and paired off; Astrid with the Nadder, Fishlegs with the Gronkle, and the twins with the Zippleback.

Hopefully Bell would be waiting when they got to Helheim’s Gate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sand Wraiths. Shoot. Burning. SAND! How awesome is that?! Oh, the plot devices!
> 
> Unfortunately, prompts. And a lack of time, since Camp NaNo starts the day after tomorrow. But I'll work it all out eventually. I hope.


	23. Flock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 23: An antagonist and a protagonist walk into an [insert neutral location here], having declared a temporary truce. Do fireworks ensue or can they have a civil conversation for once? Let us know. (300 words)
> 
> Written 3/26/19 | 573 Words
> 
> Er… Very loosely interpreted, here.

She made three more hand signals—hide, stay put, wait for me—and only watched for a moment as Aqua descended below the water before she pressed herself to Rose’s back.

Stoick was here. They were getting the war machines ready, and... there! Toothless was still on the deck of the longship he’d been loaded onto.

“Dragon!”

And, she’d been spotted.

Rose’s tan-cream scales, pale pink belly, and dark teal spines made her look like glass washed ashore on a beach... back home.

Here, she stood out like blood on snow.

She gritted her teeth, had Rose roll, deliberately showing off the fact that yes, she was on dragonback, and then guided the Sand Wraith into the volcano before the Vikings could react, terror infusing every bone in her body.

She needed Tia. Rose was amazing, and she loved her like she loved _all_ of her dragons, but she _needed_ Tia for the firepower. Hardened balls of sand wouldn’t hurt the Death, it would just annoy it.

If it felt the attack at all; they technically counted as Boulder Class for a _reason_.

The moment the cavern opened up, she directed Rose almost straight up, her eyes darting around frantically.

Nadder, Nadder, Nightmare, Gronkle, Nad—Sil!

Good starting point, though not who she was after.

She guided Rose over to the almost-white Nadder anyway, and glanced at the gasses hiding the lower parts of the volcano. It hadn’t come up to...?

And she shouldn’t have thought it, because there was the massive snout, sniffing for the new dragon... ooh, this one was green.

Distractions, bad.

Something nudged her back, and she looked over her shoulder. Silver Aionis. With the almost-glazed look of a dragon enthralled by a Death, but with that same sharp, playful spark underneath.

She held her hand out, and got a warm nose shoved under it for her efforts as the glazed look disappeared.

Oh. Okay. So where was...

Sil raised her head and trilled out a familiar whistle that Bell had taught her flock to answer to. It was the general ‘come to me’ whistle. Did that mean...?

Five more dragons flew to their ledge, ignored by the Green Death. Why should it worry, after all? They all just wanted to meet the new dragon in the nest. Rose would be under its thrall the next time it gave the order to get food.

She grinned to herself and slid down from Rose’s back, holding out both hands.

Pine Tianma claimed one with a warble that sounded highly apologetic. A glance at her back said the saddle was still there, still perfectly intact. Good.

Pine Coriolys got her other hand, at least for a moment. The dark green Whispering Death was shoved to the side a moment later by a second Whispering Death, this one bright blue and gold. Star Sapphire.

She slipped past those two and grinned a little wider, because there was Sil’s violet and gold mate, Gold Aionis, and the golden-brown Nightmare of her flock, Sun Tourmaline.

She had seven of her flock right here at the volcano, plus Hiccup and Toothless, _plus_ the other teens and the... oops. Four dragons in the ring.

...Eh. The twins could probably share the Zippleback. Two heads, two brains, but definitely not the brightest. Between the four of them, they might equal one working human brain and one working dragon brain.

...Now she just needed to get _out_ again.


	24. Flames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 24: A flashback is a device that may or may not work for your story as such. On the eve of their great struggle, however, your character is thinking back upon what’s happened and why it drives them on. (100 word drabble)
> 
> Written 3/26/19 & 3/27/19 | 419 Words (Because 100 was not even close to enough.)

A rumble. A flare of light far below.

And then, with a suddenness that startled her, her flock gathered to her, Sun dragging along the blue-green female Nightmare who’d been hovering on the edges, and Tia all but threw her onto her back.

She could take a hint.

They took the exit through the top of the volcano, and peeled off from the rest of the fleeing dragons just in time to see the Green Death emerge from the new hole at the base of the mountain.

_The shadow on the horizon could have blotted out the setting sun, if it were flying just a bit further south. Massive wings held an even more colossal body aloft, and the red light glinted off scales, visible as a violet color from here._

_Was it purple normally? Blue, stained red by the sunset? She couldn’t tell. All she could see was that it was huge, and headed straight for Tei’iki Island._

_She ran into her house and grabbed everything she could throw into a bag. Clothes, food, her journals, and the little book that had lead her to that damn cave in the first place._

_When she stepped outside again, the beast looked_ black _, because it was almost right over the village, and the sun was almost gone, and—_

 _Fire. A single, destructive breath that caught half the village on fire in a wide sweep. She took off running for the trees, for the caves that would lead her to the caldera, for_ Tia _and the rest of her flock._

_Another tongue of flame, and only the houses on the very edges of the village, like hers and the healer’s, were still unlit. Screams rose up behind her, and she spotted a few of her villagers starting to run, just as she was._

_The third wave of fire cut them all off—her from turning back to help them, and them from the forest into which she’d already escaped._

_There was no escape anymore._

Now felt just like then, watching the Green Death set the entire Viking fleet alight. And, well, that explained why so few of the men had come home. If the one that had destroyed her home had done the same...

The Vikings were running.

Well.

Most of them.

She sighed, more in amusement than anything else, no matter how inappropriate the humor might be at the moment. “Hiccup clearly came by the stubbornness issues honestly.”

Tia warbled out what was probably a laugh.

“Let’s go get ‘em.”


	25. Harmony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 25: The violins are playing, drowning out the clash of sword and shield (unless it’s not that kind of a story). There’s almost a sense of peace even in the midst of the climax, as if the characters temporarily find themselves in the eye of a storm. (200 words)
> 
> Written 3/27/19 | 272 Words

There was something about being on Tia’s back, whistling and signaling orders to her flock, that just made her relax despite the rather dire situation. Maybe it was the way all of them, even the blue-green Nightmare newcomer, were working in perfect harmony, even with Stoick and Gobber on the ground doing their damndest to help Sil and Aion distract the thing.

She and Tia had a special mission, though. Find Toothless.

They probably hadn’t gotten him off the ships before the Green Death had flamed everything, so...

The beast roared behind her, and... that had been a fireball hit, hadn’t it?

She frowned and looked over her shoulder.

Ah. Hiccup. Who was headed straight for her with Astrid and the Nadder.

“Dad?”

She looked down and pointed... oh. Huh. Found Toothless. Looked like Stoick had decided to help with that, too.

“...Are these all yours?” Hiccup asked a moment later, looking around at the dragons in the area.

She snorted. “Yup. Though, the blue-green Nightmare’s new. Sun got himself a lady friend while I wasn’t looking,” she replied. “Go help your father get Toothless free and get in the air. We can distract that thing all we want, but...”

“I think I’ve got an idea.” Though, his expression said it was definitely a crazy one.

“Eh, at least if we die, we die fighting, right?”

Astrid snickered. “Looks like Berk made a Viking of you, after all.”

Bell couldn’t help the laugh as she leaned to the right, Tia twisting into the curve with her as they turned back to the Green Death to join the others in keeping it busy.


	26. Gambit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 26: This is it, the moment we’ve all been waiting for - whatever the all-important Goal has come to mean for your character, now is their chance to seize it, miss it, or die trying. Whichever makes sense. (500 words)
> 
> Written 3/27/19 | 766 Words

Kill the Green Death. Stop this horrible, horrible cycle. Kill the Green Death.

It was a chant in her mind, desperate and determined, and every time it flickered, her eyes would catch on Astrid, on Snotlout, on the twins, on Fishlegs...

They’d been willing to listen.

 _Stoick_ had helped free Toothless again, so maybe _he’d_ listen now.

They could change.

They just had to survive _to_ change.

“He’s up!” Astrid yelled.

Bell took a deep breath, and let it out in a fairly close approximation of a Nadder’s screech before clapping both hands over her head and spreading her arms wide again.

Every last one of her flock, with the exception of Tia and _inclusion_ of the blue-green Nightmare, took off away from the Green Death as quickly as they could.

“Ruffnut, Tuffnut, get Snotlout out of there!” Astrid ordered. And... how the hell did Snotlout get on the... No. Forget it. She didn’t want to know.

“Bell! Can those wings carry it?” Hiccup shouted.

“Yes, and they can carry it damn fast! It’s not very maneuverable in the air, but its speed and size more than make up for its lack of agility,” she rattled off quickly, remembering again that horrible night when her village was razed to the ground in _minutes_.

“Good. We need to piss it off and get it in the air.”

...Yeah, he was fucking crazy.

“Plan?!”

“Get up into the clouds, disappear, shoot its wings full of holes, and get it to dive back toward the ground. Igniting its fire gasses while they’re still in its throat would be a good bonus move, but...” He trailed off there and gave her a look.

Right. Dragons weren’t too fireproof on the inside.

“...Tia and I’ll make the ignition shot. Make sure to fly off to the side when that thing crashes, not straight back up! If we do get that thing to eat its own fire, the heat’ll generate enough wind to make flying above it one _hell_ of a hazard,” she called back before dropping into a dive.

The first plasma shot to the side of its head nearly knocked the thing over. Hiccup and Toothless’ follow-up _did_ knock it over.

It roared, and then... yes! Opened its wings, dust and rocks falling as the appendages stretched out for what had to be the first time in decades.

“Alright, girl, straight up into the clouds...”

This would work.

This _would_ work.

They couldn’t afford for it to _not_ work.

The next few minutes were a blur of bright blue-violet bolts of light, roars, and the wind whistling in her ears right alongside her pounding heart.

Then, with a loud, angry bellow, the Green Death started twisting wildly, flaming everything around it, and she and Tia barely managed to avoid it.

Hiccup and Toothless hadn’t. The tailfin was on fire.

 _Shit_.

“Hiccup, get out! Tia’s got two shots left, that’ll be enough to get its attention and light her up!” she shouted.

Except, the panic on Hiccup’s face said he couldn’t, and the tailfin wasn’t moving. It was stuck in that one position. Good for diving or soaring, not fancy flying. And the Green Death had caught him thanks to the scent of burning leather. Damn, damn...

“Dive!” she screamed, Tia right on Toothless’ tail a second later—almost literally!

Hang on... “Little further up!” She pulled out the bottle strapped to Tia’s saddle and shook it.

Sloshing. There was still water in it!

The angle and wind made it hard, and she lost the cap, but at least now the fire was out.

The tailfin was too damaged, though. Hiccup would have to make a new one... if they got out of this.

Ground. Coming up quickly, too quickly, and...

She glanced over her shoulder. Yes!

“Hiccup, Tia, now!”

Hiccup pulled up, leaning to the side as he and Toothless made a too-wide arc, trying to follow her earlier directions. Tia twisted, firing a plasma bolt straight into the gaping maw behind them.

The Green Death made a kinda funny choking sound as the gasses in its throat lit up, but Bell didn’t get long to think on it, twisting with Tia as they slipped off to their left, the opposite direction from Hiccup and Toothless.

Then Toothless let out a cry that was pure, unadulterated _terror_ , and she twisted just in time to see Hiccup slip from the saddle, left leg tangled in the tailfin rigging.

Somehow, the elation she was supposed to feel when the Green Death turned into the massive fireball of its own doom never came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note; when Bell says she and Tia twisted to their left, they're facing up, so Hiccup, Toothless, and the burning ships are to their right.


	27. Bittersweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 27: If all went well, your character has their reward - whether it’s something concrete or a more abstract achievement. In their own estimation, what have they gained? Are they still the same person, or have they changed? (400 words)
> 
> Written 3/28/19 | 515 Words

It took about a week for everything to sink in, that feeling of elation swelling in her chest rather suddenly as she watched the sunset, almost a full score of dragons on the cliffside around her.

The Green Death was dead.

Hiccup was alive—albeit, now missing half of his lower left leg and currently bedridden with a fever that could still kill him, but for now, he was alive, and she counted that among her blessings.

She had her entire flock around her, including more than a couple newbies that her dragons had picked up since they’d all gotten separated in that freak thunderstorm. She took a moment to do a rapid inventory.

Tia and Rose, who could have passed for the same species at a distance, if one didn’t know their tail and ear fins well enough to know the difference. Three Nadders; Sil, Aion, and the little almost-black lady she’d picked up just before the storm, and whom she’d named Night Thistle.

Three Nightmares; her original two of Sun and Sky Agate, a pretty but dark gray female who was actually Sun’s sister, and Lunar, Sun’s new lady friend. Silver Rain and Sky Scout, a pair of Raincutter brothers.

Cor and Saph circled each other restlessly, a brightly-colored Hackatoo struggling to keep up with the not-a-race, and she smiled at Kiwi’s determination. On the other hand, Blue Abyss was trying to take a nap, and the Tide Glider was _not_ enjoying the noise the three were generating.

Fourteen dragons...

She stepped up to the edge of the cliff and looked down at Aqua... and the trio of brightly-gem-colored younglings that were swimming circles around the exhausted mother Scauldron.

She didn’t know where the father was, and she didn’t have names for these three yet, but she was glad to see Aqua had some company again. She’d been alone for too long...

Thoughts of Aqua’s original pod drew her mind back to her home island, and the... Blue Death? Purple Death? She still wasn’t sure what color it was, but she _was_ sure that it was still there.

And... as amazing as it was to watch Berk change and grow as the Vikings accepted the dragons not only as neighbors, but as friends and _family_...

She wanted to go back.

She’d spent so long running away from her past. It wouldn’t bring her village back, wouldn’t let her make amends with her father the way Stoick was still praying for the chance to make up with Hiccup, but...

If she could do this one thing, and end the monster’s tyranny back home...

Heh. Look at her. Finally picking up her courage again.

And, who knew? Night Furies were tropical dragons. Sure, Tia had her eyes set on Toothless, but their offspring would need mates. Maybe they could find and drag a few Night Furies back north with them when they returned.

Because... Berk was her home, now. She’d go back to Tei’iki and the rest of the isles she’d grown up with, but she’d be back.

Now if only Hiccup would wake up...


	28. Prosthetic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 28: Whether your character was successful or not in the completion of their goal, there was a heavy cost to the attempt. It’s time to tally those losses and - perhaps - to mourn them. (400 words)
> 
> Written 3/28/19 | 418 Words
> 
> Yes, Hiccup still lost his foot.

She’d been sitting on the roof with Rose when he stepped out the front door. Snotlout’s shouting drew her attention, and she slid down the side of the house and ran to the gathering crowd just in time for Hiccup’s usual smart mouth to make her smile.

“I knew it. I’m dead.”

Stoick was as amused as she was. “No, but you gave it your best shot.”

“Which, given your track record so far, is actually pretty impressive,” she piped up.

Hiccup twisted on the spot, nearly toppling over as the sudden movement jarred his mostly-healed stump in its prosthetic.

Toothless’s head kept him from hitting the ground, but green eyes never left her.

“We got it?”

Bell snorted and gestured to the dragons around Berk. “What do you think?”

“In my defense, I _barely_ remember Dad helping to get Toothless freed.”

Cue collective wince and awkward silence, which Gobber, bless the man’s soul, was happy to break. “Well, yeh did get a pretty good chunk o’ rock tae the head.”

And Hiccup looked _so_ confused.

She sighed. “We got it in the air, shot its wings full of holes, and got it into a dive.”

“I vaguely remember that. Wasn’t the tail rig on fire?”

“Got that put out, but too little too late. Toothless couldn’t make a sharp enough turn; when it hit the ground, he was almost right up against the mountain. Couple rocks broke loose...” She stopped there and glanced at his leg. “Gobber saw that part. By the time I turned to look, you were dangling from the rigging and Toothless was headed into a messy crash-landing. Rose, thank the gods for intelligent dragons, managed to grab you and shove Toothless out far enough to land in the water. Relatively gentler landing for him, but...”

“My leg was caught in the rigging,” Hiccup finished, realizing where she’d been going with that. He’d probably figured it out from the moment Gobber had mentioned a rock to the head.

Hiccup was left-side dominant. Left hand, left eye, left _leg_.

She could see it in the set of his shoulders. He was going to have to completely re-learn how to fly if he and Toothless were going to keep using the tail rig. Sure, she knew he had it on his to-do list to make a fin Toothless could operate himself, but...

Determination sparked in green eyes, and she offered up a smile.

Would this slow him down? For a little bit. Keep him grounded?

Never.


	29. Gorgeous Flower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 29: The falling action of the story can be about mopping up the mess left behind, shoring up all the loose ends. Describe how your character deals with one of these. (300 words)
> 
> Written 3/28/19 & 3/30/19 | 509 Words
> 
> Yes, it's long.

The sea, the wind, her fur hood and hair tickling her face. She could see Aqua playing with her children a ways out, Tia darting down to splash in the water before shooting up and away again.

Little Ventus, the bright green of the trio, would always try to leave the water after her, only to splash back down a bit later.

Scauldrons weren’t the most graceful out of the water.

“There you are!” She glanced over her shoulder to see Hiccup and Toothless landing a little ways away. “Astrid said I’d find you up here. Any particular reason, or just the charming view of the sunset?”

She snorted and smacked the brat, lightly, though, because his leg was still healing, and none of them were any good at keeping him strapped to the bed when he wanted to fly.

“Oh boy. Silence.”

She sighed, and nodded, and glanced over at Toothless. “You know how, mid-winter, the dragon attacks always taper off?”

“Yeah. Used to be attributed to the gods giving us a break for Snoggletog, but...” And he was giving her that ‘I know you want to tell me what’s _really_ happening, so go on’ look.

She snickered a bit, but nodded. “Dragon mating season. They’ll all go flying off when it’s time. Toothless and Tia, too, if I’m reading them right and if you can get his tailfin worked out.”

“...Why are you telling me this now?”

She offered up a small, sad smile. “I’m leaving.”

“What?!”

“Not today. But... tomorrow, maybe. Or the day after. _Soon_. I’d like to make it to the western wilderness before the worst of the ice sets in. Well. I used to call it the northern wilderness.” She snorted and shot Hiccup an amused look. “I’m afraid my point of reference has shifted. At least I’ve still got the landmarks memorized.”

Hiccup still looked gobsmacked, but... “Where... are you going?”

“Tei’iki. I... I’ve stopped running from my past. Now I need to go back for closure.”

“And you wouldn’t take me with you if I _begged_ , would you?”

“Nope.” She did her best to level a disapproving look on him, but she knew it fell flat. “Your tribe needs you. And as for me... I’ll be back.”

“But, if you’re leaving...”

“Tia knows the way home. And I’ll be wrangling all of these crazies,” she replied, gesturing to the trio of young Scauldrons and the Hackatoo that had flown out to join the splashing.

Silence fell over them for a long few moments.

“...Bell...”

“Puanani.”

“Poo-wha—?”

She snickered at the face Hiccup was making. “Puanani. My birth name.” She gave him a long, searching look, and saw it when he finally smiled.

Her birth name was the last gift she would give him before she left. He’d likely never use it, but the _knowledge_ could be as much of a compass as her mother tongue if she never made it back and he came looking to see what had become of her.

She prayed he’d never _need_ to use it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Puanani' is a Hawaiian name meaning 'gorgeous flower,' at least according to the baby name site I was searching on. This is actually an extremely important little note.
> 
> Belladonna, the flower she chose to name herself after when her birth name started attracting looks for being weird (on top of her already exotic appearance), can actually be a very beautiful flower. It is, however, HIGHLY poisonous, and is something of an indicator of Bell's feelings toward herself and her past.


	30. Trader Johann

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 30: What is a good ending to you? Does it leave you hungry for more, wanting to know what happens next? Or do you like your questions answered, tied up neatly by the last page? In any case, it’s time to write the closing paragraph(s). (100 words or as needed)
> 
> Written 3/30/19 | 202 Words
> 
> This one's... a little different.

_This is Berk. It’s twelve days north of Hopeless and a few degrees south of Freezing to Death. And that, down in the harbor? That’s Trader Johann’s ship. He’s pretty amused by all the dragons that have moved in around Berk, at least, but that’s not the important part._

_This is his third visit to Berk since Bell left. It’s been almost seven months since the last visit, and I’d actually gotten a Terror Mail warning of his arrival._

_None of the maps in the Barbaric Archipelago will show much further than the bare edge of the mainland to the south-east, or a hint of another continent to the west. South? Solid ocean._

_Except, she gave me a good hint right before she left. West._ Then _south._

_And Tia had confirmed it when she’d left shortly after Snoggletog, flying almost due west rather than south._

_I hadn’t expected Johann to go so far out of his way to find a map that included the western wilderness Bell had spoken of, but the length of time between visits said that he had._

_She’d come back, or I’d find her again. One day._

_And until then... Toothless and I had little Freya to raise._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Freya' is the name Astrid gave the baby Night Fury Toothless brought back to Berk for Snoggletog. She was clearly afraid that Hiccup would give the poor little girl as horrible a name as 'Toothless.'


	31. Kainoa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March 31: Epilogue - weeks, months, or years later, a character looks back upon the events of their story. What kind of wisdom has time and distance given them?
> 
> Written 3/30/19 | 404 Words
> 
> ...I love how there's no word count for this prompt.

She watched with the soaring heart she should have had half a year ago as the Blue Death—because, indeed, the sunset had dyed its scales violet when it had come to raze her village to the ground—crashed to the ground, its every scale shivering as it first imploded, and then exploded into a massive fireball.

First the Green Death, and now this horrible blue cousin of it.

A Night Fury screamed in triumph at her side, two more echoing its cries as Tia did the same, and she grinned as her eyes caught on the other three they’d found on the flight to Tei’iki.

All female, so far, but that was alright. There was at least one male still alive, and she knew right where to find him. They could rebuild the population, still.

And then a flash of fire where it shouldn’t have been drew her eyes, and she frowned.

The Blue Death had made its nest in what had probably been a single massive volcano, once upon a time. Now, it had been reduced to a dozen small isles, the largest being the foul creature’s home.

She shifted, and Tia obligingly dropped toward the... torch.

...That was a _torch_.

She knew that face. She and Tia _both_ knew that face, even if it was five years older, and scarred, and far more tired than she’d ever seen in the past.

The torch fell from limp fingers into the sand, and she’d barely had time to leap from Tia’s back—none of the heavy furs she’d worn in the far north in her way—before she’d been swept up in a strong embrace.

“You’re alive...” she breathed, even as a fourth unfamiliar Night Fury slipped out of the cave behind them... right wing membrane torn and mangled beyond use.

And still, the cobalt-eyed male watched them warily, clearly guarding the man’s back.

He shifted and pulled away, unashamed of the tears pouring down his cheeks. “A few of us still, yes.” A pause, and a smile she hadn’t seen since her mother had died. “...I missed you so much, my little flower. But I never doubted you’d survived.” Dark, _dark_ green eyes, nearly black, landed on Tia, and the Night Fury glared.

He was undeterred, and the six words he spoke had her battle-sister’s ear fins flaring in what could only be _shock_ , despite everything they’d seen on Berk.

“Thank you...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Kainoa' - Hawaiian name meaning 'free flowing ocean', again according to my favorite baby-name site.
> 
> No, I did not miscount. Yes, he did say six words. I just cut four of them off because I'm evil like that.
> 
> (And yes, if I ever get this story fully written, there will be a sequel.)
> 
> For the sake of information, no, they're not as far out as Hawaii or the Philippines, but they are somewhere between the Galapagos Islands and the Caribbean Islands, on the western side of the mainland. (It's a pretty good-sized square-ish shape that covers most of Central America.)


End file.
